Rochester man freed 18 years after wrongful murder conviction

Wednesday

Apr 28, 2010 at 12:01 AMApr 28, 2010 at 1:19 AM

Twenty years ago a confession led to the murder conviction that sent Frank Sterling to prison. But new evidence has linked the high profile homicides of a 74 year-old woman and a four-year-old girl to the same man.

This afternoon, Frank Sterling was set free.

The district Attorney says new evidence points to Mark Christie as the real killer. Christie was convicted of the murder of four-year-old Kali Ann Poulton in 1994. Now he has confessed to the murder of 74-year-old Viola Manville six years earlier.

News 10 WHEC

Twenty years ago a confession led to the murder conviction that sent Frank Sterling to prison. But new evidence has linked the high profile homicides of a 740year-old woman and a four-year-old girl to the same man.

This afternoon, Frank Sterling was set free.

The district Attorney says new evidence points to Mark Christie as the real killer. Christie was convicted of the murder of four-year-old Kali Ann Poulton in 1994. Now he has confessed to the murder of 74-year-old Viola Manville six years earlier.

Despite a videotaped confession to police, Sterling has always maintained his innocence. Today, with the help of DNA evidence and a confession from notorious child killer Mark Christie, he was proved right.

Cheers erupted and hugs followed as Frank Sterling after nearly two decades behind bars was set free -- exonerated of the 1988 murder of 74-year-old Viola Manville.

Manville was viciously beaten and shot with a BB gun as she walked a path near her home in Hilton. Sterling was arrested three years later.

He was convicted largely on this videotaped confession he gave to sheriff's investigators which came after more than 12 hours of interrogation. But throughout his trial and in interviews from prison, Sterling maintained his innocence, saying the confession was coerced while he was under self-hypnosis.

Sterling's attorney Donald Thompson said, “It says the appellate court shouldn't look at these confessions as being standardly credible or reliable. They should take a careful look at the circumstances that lead to them."

The Innocence Project took up Sterling's case, requesting DNA testing of Manville’s clothing. That DNA evidence and a confession revealed the true killer was Mark Christie -- a man whose name brings back painful memories of another high profile local murder -- that of four-year-old Kali Poulton.

Christie is now serving a life sentence for killing Kali. Sterling's attorneys say police ignored evidence pointing to Christie in the earlier case.

Peter Neufeld of the Innocence Project said, “There's no question in this case the police officers had tunnel vision and they latched on to Frank three years after the fact."

Christie was a suspect almost immediately after Manville's killing. He had bragged to friends about committing the murder but authorities at the time said he was just an attention seeking teenager.

But four years later, Christie would admit to killing Poulton leading Sterling's lawyers to fight to reopen their client's case.

Confronted with the DNA results linking him to the Manville death, Christie apparently confessed earlier this month, giving facts about the crime that were never publicly available. District Attorney Mike Green said, “Mark Christie on at least three occasions gave what amounted to full confessions to killing Viola Manville."

Sterling says his fight to clear his name is now over, even if he still holds some anger about spending two-thirds of his adult life in prison. “But it didn't change who I was. It still hasn't changed me. I'm still an innocent man."

I-Team 10 contacted the daughter of Viola Manville today by phone. Darlene Confer declined an interview saying only it was a terrible tragedy and the family is still trying to absorb the shock of this news themselves. She said it's not something they particularly want to re-live.

I-Team 10 asked Green if Christie will be charged with the Manville murder and he said it is now an open investigation and that is one course of action that they are looking at.

Sterling said he was glad Christie finally came forward, though he wished he had done so a little sooner.

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